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I'm growing really ticked off at my cable company service since it's grown so very unreliable. I've looked at wifi, & DSL (no fios where I live) but am concerned that I'll swap one devil for another when it comes to reliability.
I'll admit all the trouble I've had in the last year has made me paranoid but I must solve this reliability issue to run our business.
So rather than rant on wildly please share your choice of internet provider (DSL or cable-NO fios please) and why you like them so I can get a feel for which type of service , in general, is more reliable. (Before anyone ask I will not name my cable provider in a public forum since that is irrelevant for this discussion.)
Please share your provider experiences................
I'd bet it there is a lot more regional deviation than there is provider deviation. Meaning, it probably won't do any good for people to write Provider A is good and Provider B is bad.
I have Comcast in Huntsville and it always works. I'm sure people can write that where they live Comcast is unreliable.
I'd bet it there is a lot more regional deviation than there is provider deviation. Meaning, it probably won't do any good for people to write Provider A is good and Provider B is bad.
I have Comcast in Huntsville and it always works. I'm sure people can write that where they live Comcast is unreliable.
Hmmmm.....interesting. Why do you think that is?
Oh, yes. For this discussion company names are irrelevant. Only the type of service is important i.e. Cable vs DSL vs 3g wifi.
My first DSL was with the local telco, copper pair, 1.5M, excellent.
Next DSL was Covad/ISP, same copper pair, 1.5M, excellent
Next DSL was wireless, pretty good, some issues, primarily clear path to tower
Next cable, 7M, excellent
Next wireless, excellent. After about a year and a half, calling Tech for some reason they said it looked like I had never connected. Interesting, this was the same wireless as previously noted. In this case, the modem was mounted on the wall where reception was better than the adjacent window.
Next/now cable, excellent
That's from 1996-2010. Of the bunch, the cable has been 'most' stable but the copper pair was always reliable.
Oh, yes. For this discussion company names are irrelevant. Only the type of service is important i.e. Cable vs DSL vs 3g wifi.
The infrastructure is very specific to quality in the region. If you have one group of slackers running poor cabling, that whole area will be spotted with issues. If you have good crews and smart placement and routing, service will be better in that area.
Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure is to get it and try it out. I would recommend asking for a trial period so that if the service is not good enough you can back out.
Alternately, since you are running a business, you can pay the extra for business quality connections, and then you can ask for an SLA (Service Level Agreement), by which if they fail to be as reliable as they agree, they owe you money back.
On a residential connection, if they fail to be reliable, you're just stuck. A business connection costs more, but they will service you better in the event of a failure.
Alternately, since you are running a business, you can pay the extra for business quality connections, and then you can ask for an SLA (Service Level Agreement), by which if they fail to be as reliable as they agree, they owe you money back.
On a residential connection, if they fail to be reliable, you're just stuck. A business connection costs more, but they will service you better in the event of a failure.
Business connection? I'll have to find out what the companies in my area are offering , if anything, since all I've been offered is residential and I've made it clear that my use would be business.
Cable. Generally excellent and good service as well. I can take equipment to an office downtown, stand in line for a few and replace any component I have no questions asked.
DSL. I've never used it, but I have numerous clients that do and all have had few or no problems, and when they do resolution is (usually) pretty fast. The exception being modem replacement as they have to be mailed from (I think) Colorado. Speeds aren't too bad if you pay a little extra.
I've had DSL for a while and have had minimal problems. I can only recall one outage in my current location(been here for 4 years). The only other problems I've experienced was the providers DNS servers going down, but that was easy enough to switch to a public DNS server.
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
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I've used four broadband providers over the years: one DSL provider, and one cable provider in the Twin Cities, and two different cable providers in Atlanta.
All have been reliable, though as time goes on the speeds seem to be getting faster and faster.
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